Kathmandu 11-6-15; flight to Hanoi

Back to Kathmandu in one piece, so we head off to see some sites and take in the chaos that is Kathmandu.  We never saw one traffic signal or stop sign in all of Kathmandu.  Because of the fuel shortage traffic was down (I'd hate to see it when is normal)..we saw lines for fuel that stretched for blocks and blocks - someone told us it was up to 36 hours in line to get fuel.  It seemed orderly amazingly enough.  People hanging off of and on top of buses was the norm.  This was the precursor to our upcoming 18 day trip in Vietnam and Cambodia.  We took in the monkey temple (the actual temple site was closed off as there was a film shoot going on), and a large Hindu temple area (one of the largest, perhaps largest?? in the world, where they were cremating bodies of the dead - the ashes then are dumped into the river which is a tributary of the Ganges.  Also visited the Great Stupa, which was damaged in the earthquakes (the top was destroyed and is being rebuilt).  We have a second day in Kathmandu, but I have a full blown viral cold hitting me, and I lie low at our hotel, while Donna shops for souvenirs and gifts on the streets of Kathmandu.

Our flight departed at 11:50 from Kathmandu to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where we changed planes and then flew to Hanoi.  I'm really under the weather (in the nasty sore throat, nose running like a faucet stage)...Chiring and Nimma drop us off at the airport - we fight our way through the security check in (there was a hysterical woman who was late for her flight), and go to check in for our Malaysia Airlines flight (that's right - Malaysia Airlines), and after a number of minutes they tell us they have no record of us on the flight...following much additional discussion and time it seems that our reservation was canceled.  We can't talk to our travel agent (she is on a trek in Nepal after our volunteer time; she put together everyones travel plans)...we finally ended up talking to Malaysia Airlines reservations and luckily there were a few available seats on the plane, and we bought two tickets for the flight.  We find out days later that we had never paid for the Malaysia Airlines flights and they ended up being canceled (of course we just paid what we were told...oh well it was a panicky crazy experience, but it all worked out).  So we made it to Hanoi on our original flights (I was the guy on the plane that you always dread sitting next to..infecting everyone).  Next up Vietnam!